Known cleaning and rinsing systems are configured such that, during cleaning, all the system components, with their regions to be cleaned, and all the product-carrying connections and lines between the system components are arranged in series and thus form a single CIP circuit through which the cleaning medium flows. This design means that every volume element of the cleaning or rinsing media invariably passes through all the system components and all the connections and lines.
It is customary to use different cleaning media during the cleaning mode. Examples of such cleaning media include hot water, acid, alkaline solution and fresh water. In such cases, the system components arranged in series in the CIP circuit are treated in temporal succession with these cleaning media.
A disadvantage of known cleaning systems thereof is that it takes a long time to carry out the cleaning. This is in part because the total cleaning time depends on the cleaning time for whichever system component takes the longest to clean. In addition, all the system components are treated with all the cleaning media, even thought it might improve cleaning quality or reduce cleaning time to clean different system components in different ways.
In practice, therefore, the cleaning duration is generally determined by the cleaning duration of the container filling machine since this must be cleaned in a particularly intensive manner due to its numerous small and angled liquid channels and the similar valve arrangements. Cleaning the container filling machine therefore takes a long time.
In known systems, it is also highly disadvantageous that all the system components arranged in series must be fully prepared for the subsequent cleaning process before the latter can start. The preparation of the container filling machine is particularly laborious, because each filling point must be provided with a rinsing cap or rinsing sleeve.